Gandalf put his hand on Pippin's head. "There never was much hope, " he answered, "Just a fool's hope."
-Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
Everyone already knows, I think, how bookishly nerdy I am. So, I might as well go deeper still, and share even more of my bookworm revelations.
In college, I took mostly accounting and business classes, but there was something I loved about my required English classes. Oh, that's right. I love to read and write. I wasn't the straight "A" English student, but the departure from the constant business outlook was refreshing for me. Once my required English classes were satisfied, I missed reading long poems and trying to decipher them, and writing essays, and working on my grammar. So I took an English class on J.R.R. Tolkien. Yep. A whole class studying the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. I kind of stuck out in that class. I was the only accounting/business major. I was the only person who wasn't an English or Art major. And I loved it. Dr. Bruce teased me, saying he probably drove me crazy by being disorganized and jumping from subject to subject. He assumed I loved order and straight lines since I was an accounting major. And I did. But I wanted to add some curves to my straight lines and make them jump away from the box.
A word I learned during the course of the class, was a word Tolkien coined. Eucatastrophe. It is the opposite of catastrophe. The sudden, unexpected turn from bad to good. If you know the The Lord of the Rings, you know the battle at the Black Gate and how everything is at its most dire. Everything points to disaster. And suddenly a happy turn in the story. Tolkien used this literary device to build the tension to such a high point, and then release it like a sling shot showering a sudden good turn of events.
Reading these beautifully crafted stories by Tolkien and discussing the eucatastrophe, I began to relate it to life. Isn't it possible that we experience eucatastrophe sometimes? Just when we think we can't take any more failure, sadness, rejection. Just when we think our situation couldn't get worse, and we are about to give up. It happens. The sudden good opportunity. The good news. The unexpected blessing.
Keep hope alive. Live in the moment and trust that everything is in good hands. You may be in a dark time right now, or an uncertain time, but a eucatastrophe is possible at any moment.
In college, I took mostly accounting and business classes, but there was something I loved about my required English classes. Oh, that's right. I love to read and write. I wasn't the straight "A" English student, but the departure from the constant business outlook was refreshing for me. Once my required English classes were satisfied, I missed reading long poems and trying to decipher them, and writing essays, and working on my grammar. So I took an English class on J.R.R. Tolkien. Yep. A whole class studying the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. I kind of stuck out in that class. I was the only accounting/business major. I was the only person who wasn't an English or Art major. And I loved it. Dr. Bruce teased me, saying he probably drove me crazy by being disorganized and jumping from subject to subject. He assumed I loved order and straight lines since I was an accounting major. And I did. But I wanted to add some curves to my straight lines and make them jump away from the box.
A word I learned during the course of the class, was a word Tolkien coined. Eucatastrophe. It is the opposite of catastrophe. The sudden, unexpected turn from bad to good. If you know the The Lord of the Rings, you know the battle at the Black Gate and how everything is at its most dire. Everything points to disaster. And suddenly a happy turn in the story. Tolkien used this literary device to build the tension to such a high point, and then release it like a sling shot showering a sudden good turn of events.
Reading these beautifully crafted stories by Tolkien and discussing the eucatastrophe, I began to relate it to life. Isn't it possible that we experience eucatastrophe sometimes? Just when we think we can't take any more failure, sadness, rejection. Just when we think our situation couldn't get worse, and we are about to give up. It happens. The sudden good opportunity. The good news. The unexpected blessing.
Keep hope alive. Live in the moment and trust that everything is in good hands. You may be in a dark time right now, or an uncertain time, but a eucatastrophe is possible at any moment.
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